The audience continues to build for Corner Gas as it advances towards its March 12 finale, with a season-high 1.76 million viewers watching Canada’s favourite comedy series Monday night on CTV.

Head-to-head at 8 p.m. ET, Corner Gas delivered almost half a million more total viewers than Prison Break (1.29 million, Global).

Corner Gas also delivered more viewers than Prison Break in the key A18-34 (+25%) and A18-49 (+4%) demos.

The non-simulcast episode of Corner Gas also out-performed both 24 (1.37 million, Global/FOX) and the series premiere of The Black Donnellys (763,000; Global/NBC).

Corner Gas was the second most-watched program on Canadian television last night behind CSI: Miami (2.5 million, CTV/CBS).

Since January, Corner Gas has been averaging 1.64 million viewers.

In next week’s Corner Gas episode, Brent and Oscar have to take Davis on one of their annual camping trips which makes things more complicated than they would have liked. Hank finds himself with a once-in-a-lifetime good hair day and does his best to hold on to it. And in an effort to prove to each other how difficult their jobs are, Lacey and Wanda decide to switch jobs for a while.

Last night’s episode of Corner Gas is available now on demand on The CTV Broadband Network at CTV.ca and will also air this Saturday, March 3 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The Comedy Network.

All figures quoted based on preliminary overnight data from Nielsen BBM Media Research and represent a nation-wide picture of television viewing in Canada.